Finding your writing niche

(Source)

Finding my writing niche has been an important step in my writing journey, and it’s taken me a number of years and “drawered” manuscripts to do so. Important, because I’ve found I need a niche of my own to focus on and learn all its intricacies, in order for me to become a better writer.

It may change in the future, of course, but for the moment I can’t imagine writing anything other than Young Adult fiction. It feels funny to reason out and explain something I just know instinctively to be the case. But I thought I would give it a go.

I love writing in the teen voice, which is a very different way of viewing the world. I have more success creating 3D characters who are teens rather than adults. In addition, my writing voice (see here for my post on writing voice vs character voice) comes naturally in first person – for me, third person comes out wrong when I write it, too stilted and with no feeling. Nathan Bransford has just written a post on first vs third person if you want to check it out here. And (except when my verbosity gets the better of me) I have a “short and sharp” sentence style, according to my CPs. Both of which lend themselves to YA.

In terms of genre, Horror works best for me. I love to delve into the inner workings of the mind and of human nature, and because of that my stories tend to come out “darker” than usual. I also love writing paranormal elements, the scarier the better. Light and fluffy my fiction ain’t.

Thus, YA Horror.

How about you: Do you think it’s important to have a writing niche? Have you found yours or are you still experimenting? Do you cross over into different genres, and between adult/children’s fiction? Do you think your writing niche will change in the future, and if so, what might make it change?